Report: Road projects won't pollute Lehigh Valley air

One of the long-range area transportation projects would widen Route 22 to six lanes, including this portion of the highway where it crosses the Lehigh River at Fullerton. (DONNA FISHER / THE MORNING CALL)

Truck traffic will double and Route 22 may well be flowing at six lanes wide in the next 20 years, but that will not make it harder to breathe in the Lehigh Valley.

That's the conclusion of a Lehigh Valley Planning Commission air quality report that, had it showed a rise in pollution, could have jeopardized the funding for projects in the region's $2.3 billion plan to maintain roads and bridges over the next two decades.

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"The bottom line is the projects we're planning will not lead to an overall decline in air quality," said Becky Bradley, executive director of the Planning Commission, which helps manage roughly $100 million in road, bridge and transit projects a year in Northampton and Lehigh counties. "That's really important because if it didn't conform we could have been asked to remove projects from our plan."

That includes major projects such as the widening of Route 22 from Airport Road to Interstate 78, the replacement of dozens of bridges and the rebuilding of highways such as Route 33 and Route 309. In addition, the long-range plan estimates that the proliferation of warehouses and distribution centers in the Valley will nearly double the amount of truck traffic on the highways.

Joe Minott, executive director of the Clean Air Council in Philadelphia, questions how all that could happen without harming air quality. Minott stressed that he was not so much questioning the Planning Commission report, but the federal process setup of generating it.

"I've been doing this since 1982, and yet I've never seen an MPO [Metropolitan Planning Organization] study ever say, 'Well, this road project will be adding pollution,'" Minott said. "Someone has to explain to me how that's possible. How does every road project seem to comply?"

Bradley said it's more complex than that, and the Valley's plan most certainly passes muster. Roughly 80 percent of all local highway, bridge and transit projects are federally funded. But according to the Federal Clean Air Act, to get that funding the planning organization must perform an Air Quality Conformity Analysis that shows the planned projects do not make air quality worse.

The five-month analysis by the commission uses preset models to measure the levels of ozone, carbon monoxide and particulate matter in the air. Using that model for benchmark years of 2015, 2018, 2025, 2030 and 2040, the 93-page report concluded that the transportation projects will not increase those levels.

To be clear, that doesn't mean the Valley shouldn't be concerned about its air quality, Bradley said. In fact, an American Lung Association report last year said that the region has the 14th worst air quality in the country. The Planning Commission analysis doesn't even mean that air quality won't get worse by 2040. It has merely determined that if it does, the Long-Range Transportation Improvement Plan won't be to blame.

Bradley explained that most of the long-range plan projects merely maintain the current system with such improvements as road resurfacing and bridge replacement. Some actually would improve air quality, such as investing in a fleet of hybrid buses for LANTA.

Even the widening of Route 22 won't increase pollution because, theoretically, traffic will be moving more freely along the highway, Bradley said.

"Reducing congestion reduces the amount of time cars are sitting in traffic, and that reduces emissions," Bradley said. "That will offset the impact of the increase in vehicles. It's right-sizing the highway, not creating more capacity."

"I understand the theory, but every highway I've ever seen widened eventually reaches capacity," Minott said. "The congestion just comes back."

Anyone hoping to weigh in on the debate gets their chance during an open house to discuss the matter at 3 p.m., Sept. 11 at the Planning Commission's office in Hanover Township, Lehigh County. People also have until Sept. 28 to comment on the plan through the planning commission's webpage, LVPC.org.

"This isn't something we take lightly," Bradley said. "Air quality in the Lehigh Valley is an issue that is very important to me."